It Will Always Be This Way
by SpyMaster
Summary: You cling to denial like a drowning man clings to a life preserver. They can not have died. One Shot. Warning Character Death. DH Spoilers.


**Author's Note: **This isn't beta read so all mistakes are my own. I wrote this last year (2007) for the RT Challenge August ficathon. I just remembered that I wrote this and thought I might as well post it. Enjoy!

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_"There's no such thing as a crowded battlefield. Battlefields are lonely places." - Alfred M. Gray_

A battlefield is a noisy place to be what with the explosions, the shouting, the screaming and the crying. Noise is one of the few things in life that can push down on you and smother you with its touch without touching you at all. The ability to hear is one of the three senses designed to let you know about the presence of others, if you can hear them you know that they are there. Sight and touch are the other two senses. However, when all you can hear is your own voice screaming in denial, when all you can see is your lover's body obscured behind a wall of tears and when all you can feel is the solid whole reassuring mass of their body, which despite your pleas won't respond to your touch, you are blind. You are alone.

You cling to denial like a drowning man clings to a life preserver. _'It can not be true' 'I need them too much' 'They can not have died'_ Slowly you become aware again of the battle that rages on around you, heedless to the change, the biggest change of all, that has occurred in your life. Seemingly of its own accord your hand searches for your wand, the wand you dropped when you fell next to your lover. You find it fallen next to their wand, in retrieving it they brush against each other causing sparks to fly out of both. _'It's a sign'_ you tell yourself. You are not alone because you will always be together, fighting together. Even last year when duty and a misguided sense of honour kept you apart you were still together, when it mattered, fighting and protecting, it will always be this way. _'They can not have died'_

You look up and see the death eater, who you know is responsible, cruelly blasting a student with the killing curse. Their mask has fallen off and their face is lit with triumph. It seems like the child, for he is a child surely not even of age, to fall. The solid thump his body makes as it hits the ground, the clatter his wand makes as it joins him a second later reawakens you to the battle. Heedless of your own safety, your blood boiling in your veins as anger makes its first appearance, you scream the first spell you think of, the first of many you will utter in this battle.

'_**Incendio'**_

The death eater screams in outrage as they find themselves on fire, burning the way they should for all eternity. From behind another hateful voice screams _'Crucio' _and almost as if you were under the imperius curse you leap to the side effortlessly, the curse missing you by inches as you turn to face your new challenger. They try and taunt you but you ignore them, ignore the temptation to begin verbally sparring. They is nothing that they can say that will hurt you anymore, you know the truth and you know the lies, you could not possibly feel anymore than you already do.

Out of the corner of your eye you see that the death eater you set on fire has drenched themselves in an effort to put out the flames. Water is now running and mingling with the blood on the ground. That gives you an idea for a spell, one not commonly known, one you hate to use as it was invented by one of _them_ but consequently could give you an advantage as they wouldn't expect it. For the first time since you entered the battlefield you think of your son, you can not leave him, you won't.

'_**Sectumsempra'**_

The death eater you're fighting looks at you with an expression that mingles surprise and pride. You just used a dirty spell; you're on their terms now. A slight movement out of the corner of your eye causes you to dive out of the way. Your previous opponent tried to curse you from behind. Before you can shoot off a curse a student runs forward and tackles the death eater the muggle way, tearing the death eater's wand out of their hand claiming it for their own. The student scrambles up and tries to stun the death eater; he rolls away towards the blond haired child he killed earlier, to that child's wand. Within a moment they are duelling.

You tear your eyes away back to the opponent you'd made bleed. You note that they've managed to stop the bleeding everywhere but on their face; you savagely hope that if fortune favours the death eater again it'll scar and pain them, a permanent reminder of their failure and the fact that pure blood doesn't always win. With eyes alight with malice the death eater turns not to you but to your lover, who lies still on the ground as if sleeping. Suddenly you realise what the death eater has planned. Unable to best you in a fair fight they're turning on your lover. They know as you do that _they can not have died_. You act before you can finish the train of thought and come to reason why they are going to attack someone who _currently_ poses them no immediate threat.

Instinctively you cast a _'Protego'_ charm; you can almost see it encasing your lover in a protective bubble in which no further harm can befall them. Relieved you react a second too late to the jet of green light that is shooting towards you, shot from behind the death eaters outstretched arm, hiding the action until too late. _'This can not be it' 'I can not die'_

You don't know it but you fall close to your lover. You don't know it but from that moment you will always lay side by side. Together, forever, it will always be this way.

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**Author's Note: **My take on the missing death scene of Tonks/Remus. For the first time when writing I didn't have a clear picture as to where this was going I just wrote and let the words tell me. I didn't intend for it to be anonymous in the second person the whole way through but it just wrote that way. I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to who fell first. I was undecided myself until halfway through when it just became obvious with the details I was working in who it must be. Anyway this is my first stab at R/T and actually HP fanfic. Hope somebody enjoys it.


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